Disappointment

I am having another bout of disappointment. It's raining. A last minute change to the weather forecast. I had hoped to get at least some painting done. Actually, I had hoped to get all of the painting done but I tend to over reach what I can do these days. Working in the heat has recreated some breathing difficulties.... dammit, dammit, dammit!!

I'm just going through one of those spells where nothing that is suppose to happen is happening. I'm needing some good news and fast. I need something to cheer me up and keep me going. I need money!! I've seen it from a distance! I know it's out there some where, but I really need some close quarters contact with the stuff for awhile. Access to the stuff through winter would be an absolutely amazing change in my life!! Imagine turning on the furnace without first having a tremor of fear!

I'm 52. I've spent my life trying to be decent and be nice and to do for other people and it's really pissing me off that I can't make anything happen for myself..... dammit, dammit, dammit!

louie

Politics and Religion

With doing so much manual labor lately, it is easy to just go onto autopilot and let my mind wander off. So yesterday when edging a bit of sod,my mind took a poke at politics and religion. I was mostly trying to figure out why there is an "and" there. It has been proven time and again that they make poor bedfellows. As poor as politics and corporations. Yet we persist. Despite a supposed separation, as the midterm elections approach we are made aware which candidates God is backing.

It made me remember back when Pat Robertson , the tel-evangelist, ran for president. I remember his statement, "God told me that I would be the next president of the United States!" Well, I also remember Pat Robertson saying the only sexual position christians should use is "missionary", so all in all I'm glad that ol' Pat has a hearing problem when it comes to God.

I also imagined what it would be like if the christian faction of our nation was told to "get ye up and go forth to the land of Canaan". I don't know where that is anymore so I suppose we would just go to Canada. Can you imagine the conversation though!?

"Herb! Pack up the kids and the Mrs. and go ye up to the land of Canaan/Canada!"

"But God! We just re-fied the McMansion. I got 4.39 % interest! I'm on the gravy train !"

"Herb, take only what you can carry on your back. Take no provision. You will be provided for."

"But God, have you checked out the 401k? It's stabilizing and I could be into some profit this year! And what about the pool?!"

"Herb, take a coat."

"But God......."

At this point Mrs. Herb sticks her head out... "Honey? Did I hear you talking to someone?"

"No, Sweety, it was just the radio."

I don't know... maybe I should keep my mind a little more restrained today. However, I'm REALLY glad that Pat Robertson didn't become president!

Louie

P.S. GOOD MORNING, POLAND!!!!

Too Hard

Okay, I think I hit it too hard yesterday. I was going good and then felt myself wearing out. My reasoning was to work harder to get done before I wore out. I made myself get funky. I got too hot, forgot my water, trouble breathing, cramping and when I did make myself stop and drink, the water made me nauseous.

Oh well, that is nothing compared to digging out the house trench a couple of years ago. I managed to cut my hands up a bit, sometimes bled. Sandy soil pushed around the nails and under them, slowly separating the nail from the finger. I used duct tape on my fingers to help hold the nail down and to protect. Swollen, painful hands. Painful, back spasms. Sucking mud that came up to my knee and if you tried to walk or turn, it pulled so hard on your leg that it made the knee and hip joints pop. Got so cold and wet that some days I had to haul myself up and find a protected place and build a fire.

But we made it... we got it done. I'll get this done too.

I have to get it done.... the next project is waiting.

It isn't enough to have a house. I have to have it all. It isn't enough to have just a little piece of the dream and I will work until I fold up and die to get it. Hell! I've had employers that came damn close to killing me. What was that about? Them making more money! But this one...... this one's for me.

With that in mind, I'd have to say there is no such thing as "too hard".

louie

Today is......

Today is a big push day. When I get done here I need to get brave and go out and climb down into a hole and dig out the mud. The mud is so slimy with having gotten rained on so much that it is impossible to use shovels, post hole diggers.. anything! Once it gets attached to whatever tool you are using, it just sticks! It is much faster to just pull on a pair of mud gloves and dig it out by hand. Although it feels like some sort of torture or punishment, it is faster and I REALLY want to get done with this.

Once this last footing trench is dug out, I'll be filling it with gravel that has a lot of fines in it. Then it will be left over winter to settle down hard. Next spring it will be ready for building the hobbit house...FINALLY!! There have been ample opportunities to give up on this project. I don't know why I haven't.

I have to gear up mentally to get down there. I'm a little bit claustrophobic and you get in the trench and you just have straight walls of dirt around you. It's cold and damp and just plain depressing. The footing trenches caved in on the garage footings and the house footings as well. I dug both out by hand a second time. The house caved in again. Next time I had some help, supplied by my kids, to get it dug out. Again it had to be done by hand. When we got those footings poured for the house the heavens opened and the angels sang. The next day it rained.

With Mac's leukemia recurring last year, I was just never able to stay ahead of keeping the garage footings open. I had to give up on them. A neighbor came over with his tractor and pushed the dirt back in. It was the end of a long , hard fought battle.... that I lost. I don't want to lose the hobbit house too.

It has been dry a week and who knows when that will happen again. It might be my last chance to have this come out in my favor. So I will gather together my sick sense of humor and my warrior woman nerve and I will climb down into a footing trench one more time. It's always easier if you have someone with you. Even if they aren't working. Someone to just be around. But I don't have that so I'd better just get over it and get this done! I'll take pictures!

My last big push..... we're almost there.

louie

Another PS. today GOOD MORNING, BRAZIL!! GOOD MORNING, INDIA!! GOOD MORNING, IRAQ!! I'm assuming the last one is a person in the armed services. Hope the adventures of a crazy lady in Iowa gives you a taste of home.... not that I think your family is crazy... or that you live in Iowa.... Well, anyway, HI!!

Chick Flicks

It's a shame that men don't understand the power of a chick flick. If they did, they would have their own copies. My husband and I watched "The Mirror Has Two Faces" last night. He laughed in the appropriate places. He got George Segal's great line..."I gave a copy of 'Farewell to Arms' to my girlfriend. She thought it was a diet book." But he didn't "get" the movie. He somehow came away thinking it was about teaching, and it was just that one person was a better teacher then the other.

I'm not sure if that is an indication of emotional damage or mental.

Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to explain chick flicks to guys....... The chick flick is a romantic contrivance to illicit an emotional response. Kind of like slap stick for the three Stooges, situational comedy is for Lucy, the seven words for George Carlin. It's the set up! But why a guy should like it is that it softens the frosty demeanor. It creates a mood. It's foreplay in a box!!

So just keep it in mind that "The Mirror has Two Faces " is NOT about teaching! "You've Got Mail" is NOT about the bookstore business. "When Harry Met Sally" is NOT about moving to New York and establishing a career. "The Matchmaker" is NOT an Irish travel journal. Yes, there will be a test of sorts afterward.....you'll probably fail.

But at least I tried.

louie

Planting the little farm

I think we have no choice but to accept that it is fall. If I weren't so busy panicking about the approach of winter, I could probably enjoy it a little. One of the nice parts of fall is that I stop and assess just where I'm at and where I'm going. This kicks off one of my first to-do lists for next year, which will be the new plants that will need to be ordered. Last year I ordered two hundred trees and shrubs. The trees which were sugar maples, had some casualties. The shrubs which were hazelnuts and elderberries did very well. Next year I would like to kick it up a notch and go ahead and place a five hundred tree order. Another hundred hazelnuts, one hundred sugar maples and three hundred spruces. NO PINES!! The deer think you laid out a lovely well spaced luncheon for them if you plant pines. The spruces they have left alone so far.

The five hundred trees will be small ones from the Dept. of Natural Resources. I try to buy bigger trees when I can afford them. Right now I was fortunate to find a paper bark maple at Pamida. Only four feet tall but then I only spent twenty dollars. In fall there are some great plant bargains out there. It really just pisses me off that I'm broke.... still!! I have a plan though! The local Hy-Vee store, which is an Iowa based grocery store has their mums on sale for a dollar per pot. The plants are okay, but the blooms are spent so no one is buying them. I want a bunch of them. So noticed yesterday that they were out of hedge balls. I will call the manager today and ask if they want more hedge balls and see if I can manage a trade.

I could use about thirty mums out in the hobbit garden. Up at the top of the terraces, like a little mum type hedge. The second level of the terraces have been started with old fashioned hollyhocks and balloon flowers. I am still hoping to get the little hobbit house built next spring. I have not given up. I even have hopes of getting the hobbit yard sodded yet this fall. Vague, distant hope maybe, but hope none the less.

My other method of planting the farm is with nuts. I have been gathering shag bark hickories and I have about three varieties of oak, or I should say acorns. I am ridiculed for this method of planting. I've been told, somewhat unkindly, that I am of advancing years and when I plant nuts I have no guarantee that I will survive to see a mature tree. Well, I'm not just investing in my own pleasure and I'm not just investing in the little farm. I do things because they are the right things to do. And, anyone who doesn't do what is right because they think they won't see the results.... well, they're just sissy wuss bags.

Must go, my acorns are waiting.

louie

Marital Advice

Whenever you hear of some soul starting out in a new marriage, the first thing most people want to do is ... give advice. On the whole this advice is not wanted. I got lots and lots of advice when Mac and I got married... probably because we didn't hardly know each other. so we did the pre-marital counseling thing. We took home tools to work with and that was important. There was some advice from that quarter. We were told there were three causes for divorce. Money, Family and Sex. Money.. make a budget and COMMUNICATE. We don't but there ya' go Family... let it go in one ear and out the other and if you have to, tell them to take a hike! Sex... marriage is the cake and sex is the frosting and don't get your confectionary components confused.

Probably the biggest advice we got was to "love on credit". There will be days when you are so mad or so tempted and you just have to believe, you have to know that tomorrow it'll be okay and you'll be in love again. Just believe in tomorrow. Of course, this really only works if you're in love in the first place, so there you go.... again.

That's all professional advice. My homespun advice has more to do with the frosting stuff. You see, I had been told that I couldn't get pregnant. Yes! it was a Dr. and everything. But they were wrong or there was a miracle or something, but any way, don't think you can't get pregnant just because somebody told you so. Let's see that was my first child and then I had my second cause I was told you can't get pregnant when breast feeding. This is wrong. I have proof! Let's see the third child was a result of a bad economy. Do not put a great deal of faith in generic, over the counter contraceptives that you get at K-Mart. So what all of this boils down to is this, if you don't want to have any more kids, my one word of advice is this......SURGERY!! It's a good thing!

Oh and Mac's mom's advice... "Don't marry her!" I was siting next to him when they were speaking on the phone. Just remember... in one ear and out the other.

Louie


A couple of PS's... first off, GOOD MORNING, ISRAEL!!! And secondly, Petra, I wish you were here cause my oldest daughter and I have been trying to work with Google site to create the farm web page, and I'm telling you, those people are on crack or something!!! Google site is the suckiest suck that ever sucked!